


My Lady

by MatriasLupa



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 16:43:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6618367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatriasLupa/pseuds/MatriasLupa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the War, Humans reigned supreme and Demons lived to serve them. Human males were considered rare and valuable, and joining a servantless upperclass household was unheard of. But somehow Beck had found both of those things in the Rutfield house, and the small family continued to confuse and amaze him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Lady

The cottage was beautiful and quaint, nothing like the manor where I had served my masters for almost all of my life. In a way it reminded me of my original home at the School, where we had been taught how to work in our field of servitude, as gardeners, butlers, handymen, and other such common things.

To say I wasn’t fearful of meeting my new master would have been a lie. Women were often cruel owners and sometimes I wondered what it would be like to serve a man instead. These were all in my head, of course, as I would never dare to speak them aloud. I held my rucksack close. It contained everything I owned and the small suitcase held the few presentable articles of clothing I had. Well. I was accomplishing nothing be standing there.

The first step was filled with anxiety and I could feel the heat of the cobblestone under my boot. Summer had only just begun and I was sweating profusely under my suit. The next step and then the next were filled with equal anxiety, but my mask was upon my face. The picture of perfect obedience. 

When I made it to the door, I raised my hand and gave two sharp knocks, swallowing heavily. I waited for a full minute, with no answer, but then heard a loud ruckus from inside the house and blinked. Only a moment later the door swung open and I found myself blinking down at a young boy. He was fairly well dressed, much more so than one would dress a son of a servant. Perhaps he was the son of the Master of the house. I nodded down at the young man.

“Hello, young Master. Is Dr. Rutfield in the residence?” I asked politely, hoping I would not be yelled at for… well, anything. The young boy stared up at me, unblinking and then looked over his shoulder and hollered rather loudly, “AUNT JAE, SOMEUNS HERE TO SEE YOU.”

Oh. A nephew. Well, certainly made some sort of sense. Some women treated their own family with a considerable amount of affection, this I knew from others, though my former masters had never done any of the sort. 

“Do not yell like that, Todd,” An amused voice sounded from a room to the right, before the staircase. A gentle sort of woman emerged, wearing very simple clothing. I might have mistaken her for one of the Free Ones from the town over, but the way she held herself gave her away. This would be the Doctor, then. I bowed deeply before straightening, and pulled my paperwork from inside my jacket pocket. 

“Hello, Mistress, I am Beck. The agency sent me over.” She didn’t take the paperwork from my hand, instead she looked me over carefully. I squared my shoulders and tried to look presentable. Servants who didn’t look presentable were often punished for being lazy, in my personal experience.  
“I assume you’ve been branded?” She asked quietly, tilting her head to the side.

I nodded seriously, the branding in question tingling gently on my neck. “Of course ma’am.” It had been there since I had been sold as a child. 

“To be honest, Beck, I have no need of a butler or a servant of any kind,” She said gently, as though talking to a child. I much preferred it to being yelled at.

“Pardon, ma’am,” I ventured, nervousness filling my chest, “But I also cook, and garden and clean. You won’t notice I’m here.” She didn’t seem as bad as it could have been and didn’t want to be turned away at the door and then sent back to another house of horrors. 

She stared and then slowly took the papers from my hand, and I resisted the urge to exhale deeply. I had never been in a good house of my own, but sometimes they existed. Dr. Rutfield seemed the sensible sort and keeping a nephew in her care, and not as a servant, was a good sign. More women would make slaves, rather, servants, of such a young boy, then choose to raise them.

“If you would like, I could draw up the papers to have you released, and sign your branding,” She offered, raising her eyes from my papers.

I blinked, rather owlishly. Released? Sign my… branding? I continued to stare, my eyes growing wider. She was offering to release me? To give me… freedom? Was it a trap? “Ma’am that won’t be necessary. If you have no wish for me here then simply return me to the agency and they will reimburse you.” Not that she had paid for me in the first place. This arrangement had come with the will, after the death of my previous masters. 

She stared at me, “You do not wish to be free?” With these words, once upon a time, I would not have been able to tell if it was a trick or not, but the way she send them implied she wasn’t trying to trap me or trick me in any way.

“It is not that, Mistress,” I said quietly. “There is little work for a Free creature such as myself.” There wasn’t. Women freed from servitude had a hard time finding work only because of the use of servants in many establishments. But they at least had a chance. Why hire a Free demon when you could buy one for less?

She folded my paperwork and slipped it inside one of her pockets and nodded. “Very well then. I’m sure we’ll scrounge something up for you to do around here.” She nodded to the stairs. “Shall I show you your room?”


End file.
